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Not long ago, we did a presentation about the three facets of CX, where I suggested that customer experience requires all of these to be successful:
- Mindset
- Strategy
- Business Discipline
In this article, I’d like to dive deeper into these topics via some of my favorite questions from the last few months directly from CX leaders and change agents who make up the Experience Investigators community.
1. Questions Related to Customer Experience Mindset
When we talk about CX Mindset, we mean the ways that individuals — and the organization as a whole — approach being customer-first.
This includes topics like…
- Developing a customer-centric culture
- Defining the role of a CX leader
- Cross-functional coalitions across teams & departments
If you’d like to learn more about any of these topics, here are some links to get you started:
- 4 C’s of CX Culture: How Well is Your Company Doing?
- Cross-Functional CX: How to Make Customer Experience Work Across your Organization
Otherwise, let’s get to the questions!
Question: How do you make sure the entire C-Suite team is on-board with the CX objectives? — Anonymous
Our C-Suite has added four new executives in the past two years. How do we make sure the entire executive team is on board with our CX objectives?
Jeannie’s Answer:
The C-Suite is expanding. A favorite example of this is a client of Experience Investigators who broke their CTO role up into smaller components: A Chief Information Officer, a Chief Technology Officer, and a Chief Data Officer.
As the C-Suite expands, it’s absolutely critical to have clear, consistent messaging around CX come directly from the CEO — not once, but always.
A Chief Experience Officer at the C-level can help to make sure the customer is represented at all levels.
But it’s not just about the C-Suite.
Making CX a part of the company culture means everybody learns it. It’s ingrained from the start.
When new employees are onboarded, make sure they understand not only that CX is a major focus, but why.
Watch the Video Answer Here:
Question: How can you connect Employee Experience (EX) and Customer Experience (CX)? – David
You talk a lot about Employee Experience (EX) and, of course, a lot about Customer Experience (CX). But how do these directly relate to one another?
Jeannie’s Answer:
Put simply, there is no bigger driver of your customer experience — good or bad — than your employees. They’re the ones delivering the customer experience, after all.
But it’s not just customer-facing employees. Every single employee has an impact on CX.
If we promise a certain customer experience, we better be practicing what we preach within our organization as well. If we don’t, then employees start recognizing that something doesn’t feel right.
The other part of this that’s often overlooked: Mapping the employee journey. When being mindful about the journey you’re creating for employees is demonstrated to be as important as the journey you’re molding for customers, those employees notice. And these days, that’s more important than ever.
It’s easy to split up CX and EX, but it’s all connected. The more your organization can think of the two holistically, the better both will fare.
Watch the Video Answer Here:
Question: How do you bring HR with you regarding customer experience and recruitment? – Christopher
Jeannie’s Answer:
Sometimes it’s best to start with your learning and development team. If possible, try to pair up with L&D to develop a great strategy around things like:
- What do new hires need to understand about CX during onboarding?
- How can employees know our CX mission and other key items?
I say this because your L&D team may have more control in how this information is created and shared than HR.
Otherwise, it’s about framing the discussion to address the things your HR or Recruiting team already wants:
- They want support and to do things well
- They want to set up their candidates for success
Use your CX Success Statement to consider different departmental goals and tie CX outcomes directly to those goals.
Watch the Video Answer Here:
2. Questions Related to Customer Experience Strategy
CX Strategy focuses on how and why an organization is dedicated to customer experience. (Spoiler alert: It’s not just for the sake of being nice to customers!)
CX Strategy includes topics like:
- Customer Experience (CX) vs. Customer Experience Management (CXM)
- Return on Investment (ROI) of CX
- Developing a CX Charter
- Feedback Strategy
Want to dive deeper into any of these topics? Here are some more helpful links:
- Customer Experience Management Defined: How is it Different From CX?
- Is Customer Experience Worth It? And How Much Should You Invest?
- Create Your CX Charter with These 6 Questions
- 5 Ways to Optimize Your Customer Feedback Program
On to the questions!
Question: What is the difference between CX and CX management? – Bill
Jeannie’s Answer:
Sometimes it’s easy for an organization to build something I call Customer Journey by Org Chart, where we force the customer through our processes based on how our departments and teams are set up.
Or, companies may say they’re invested in the customer but not do anything with their feedback.
In both of these cases, the intentions are good — it’s an inability to turn those intentions into customer-centric strategies where their plans get stuck in the mud.
In order to succeed, we need Customer Experience Management (CXM).
Simply defined, CXM is what happens inside the organization in order to deliver an intentional customer experience.
CXM is how we go from thinking CX is “nice to have” to act on it like what it is: a mindset, a strategy, and a business discipline.
Customer Experience Management allows us to apply:
- Business leadership
- Business insights
- Communication with the customer
…to our CX intentions.
You can read more about CX Management here: Customer Experience Management Defined: How is it Different From CX?
Watch the Video Answer Here:
Question: How can customers provide better feedback to companies to create action? – Anonymous
It seems like I have a poor experience with almost every business I deal with, and they don’t seem to care. Do you have any advice on how I can provide better feedback to companies as a customer?
Jeannie’s Answer:
I love this question, for one, because it highlights how common — and unhelpful — it can be for companies to collect feedback just for the sake of collecting it. It can be frustrating for customers but also for employees who don’t feel empowered to make a change.
I think all of us can think of at least one example of feeling really unheard and uncared for by a business we are the customer of. It’s a terrible feeling and one that erodes our trust, patience, and belief in a brand.
In today’s world, ticket volumes across channels have gone up significantly in almost every industry. The result? Employees in environments that are short-staffed and where they’re not getting what they need to be successful, and both employees and customers suffer for it.
With that in mind, as a customer, I try to start from a place of compassion and empathy.
It’s also alright, when possible, for us to take our business elsewhere when it makes sense. If we’ve repeatedly tried to provide feedback to a company and repeatedly feel unheard, it may simply come down to them not having the infrastructure to effectively collect and act upon feedback.
I know it’s not always feasible, but taking your business elsewhere can sometimes be the less-stressful option in the long run.
On the flip side, what can companies do right now to better collect and use feedback?
It all starts with a feedback strategy.
That means understanding and communicating:
- What you’re asking
- Why you’re asking it
- How you’re asking
- What you’re going to do about customer feedback
…otherwise, you’re wasting everybody’s time.
When your organization does know and communicate these things throughout the organization, it can empower employees and make it easier for them to serve your customers.
Watch the Video Answer Here:
Question: How often should you set or update your CX Strategy? – Gabriella
How often should CX Strategy be set? Every 6 months? Annually? Or some other cadence?
Jeannie’s Answer:
The exact cadence you choose will depend on the culture and set-up of your organization. And while some strategies and goals should change, other parts of your strategy really shouldn’t ever change unless your organization is going through significant operational changes.
I always recommend companies start with a Customer Experience Mission, which defines key characteristics of what Customer Experience means within an organization.
This is one of those foundational tools that should be the same years from now as it was when you first created it.
On the other hand, another tool we recommend, the Customer Experience Success Statement, is focused on defining CX goals and connecting them to larger organizational and leadership goals.
This tool is one that likely will change over time, as goals are completed or circumstances change.
You may find your team works best updating some strategies after a major goal or milestone has been reached. These moments can present a great opportunity to refocus on what needs to happen next.
Other organizations may find that waiting to update strategy until a milestone has been reached sometimes prevents those milestones from being met at all. In those cases, choosing a cadence of six months or a year may be more helpful.
Watch the Video Answer Here:
3. Questions Related to Customer Experience Business Discipline
When we talk about CX as a business discipline, we’re referring to things like governance, prioritization, hiring and training practices, and much more.
Work that impacts the business discipline of CX can include:
- Journey Mapping
- CX Metrics
- CX Team meetings
Want to know more about these topics? Here are some helpful links:
- Why Journey Map? 3 Problems They Can Solve
- Customer Journey Mapping: Real-World Examples & Use Cases
- How to Run an Effective Customer Experience Team Meeting
Let’s get to the questions!
Question: Should Micromoments be captured on customer journey maps? – Gabriella
Should Micromoments be captured on the customer journey itself? I am thinking it would be beneficial in order to align everyone, but do you think it might get confusing?
Jeannie’s Answer:
When we approach journey mapping, we have to do while mindful of questions like:
- Why are we journey mapping? What’s the key goal?
- What is the scope of this particular journey map?
- How are we communicating this across our organization?
If, while working on your goal and scope, you discover that there are likely to be a whole bunch of Micromoments you want to include, it may make sense to go one step further and try an exercise we call Micromapping.
Related Video: What Are Micromoments, and Why Are They So Important?
This is where you take one small part of the journey and really dig into what small things are happening.
Examples include:
- What does it look like to call into a service center with a simple question at a busy time?
- What is it like to receive my groceries after ordering online?
If you find a micromoment that applies throughout the many points in the customer journey, of course you can (and should!) account for that beyond the one small part you’re examining. This is one way that micromapping a single moment can have a wider impact.
But even if micromapping a key moment in the journey only directly affects that moment, its effects on the customer experience as a whole can be felt well beyond.
Watch the Video Answer Here:
Question: How frequent and long should CX meetings be?
Jeannie’s Answer:
I wish I had a one-size-fits-all answer for this, but this is another case where it really depends.
In general, I recommend meetings of about 90 minutes, scheduled monthly.
With that said, there are many variables that may impact what’s best for you.
For example: if you’re just starting out, it can be easier to schedule slightly shorter meetings slightly more frequently. This makes it easier to keep your momentum and keeps meetings from getting overwhelming for everyone.
Unpredictability can influence your ideal meeting cadence and duration too. If your industry requires a particular amount of nimbleness and flexibility (or if a global pandemic is making things difficult to manage and predict), shorter, more frequent meetings can help.
Of course, when you’re scheduling a meeting for a cross-functional team, aligning schedules can be difficult. This is where longer but less-frequent meetings might make things easier for many.
If you’d like to dive deeper into this topic and improve your CX team meetings, check out this free resource we’ve created: Customer Experience Meeting Agenda & Guidebook
Watch the Video Answer Here:
Wrapping Up
Want to learn more about the 3 Facets of CX? Check out the article here or the full live session video here.
What to ask your own question? Send a question in or join us for our next live session! Subscribe on YouTube, Follow me on LinkedIn, or sign up for our weekly letter for more questions and answers.
I want to close with a HUGE thank you to everyone in the Experience Investigators Community — and if you’re reading this, that includes you. Your questions, ideas, and curiosity are inspiring and help Experience Investigators in our mission to create fewer ruined days for customers.
Thank you, and keep up the great work!
Jeannie